In magnetic disk drives and other high purity applications, particle contamination can cause a host of failure mechanisms. In these applications, it is highly desirable to minimize particles present in manufacturing and during application. Magnetic disk drives typically comprise a number of precisely dimensioned operating parts, e.g., spacers, disk clamps, e-blocks, cover plates, base plates, actuators, voice coils, voice coil plates, etc. These components can all be potential sources of particles. During drive operation, the head typically flies over the media at a spacing of about 100 Å. This spacing is decreasing with increasing areal density, making the reduction and prevention of particle generation ever more critical. Particles at the head disk interface can cause thermal asperities, high fly writes, and head crashes; any of these are detrimental to performance of a disk drive.
U.S. Pat. Publ. No. 2003/0223154 (Yao) discloses prevention of particle generation by encapsulation with a coating “made of a soft and tenacious material, such as gold, platinum, epoxy resin, etc.” U.S. Pat. Publ. No. 2002/0093766 (Wachtler) discloses the use of adhesive-backed heat shrinkable conformal films to protect against particle generation. U.S. Pat. No. 6,671,132 (Crane et al.) discloses the use of metal or polymeric coatings. U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,055 (Kikkawa et al.) discloses the use of resin coatings. U.S. Pat. No. 6,903,861 (Huha et al.) discloses the use of certain polymer coatings as an encapsulant for microactuator components. PCT Publ. No. WO 2006/074079 (Kehren et al.) discloses the use of fluoropolymers comprising reactive pendant groups for particle suppression coatings.
Particles within hard drive assemblies can lead to friction and localized hot spots, which in turn can lead to failure of the hard drive and loss of the data magnetically encoded with it. One approach to this issue has been use of electroplated nickel as a particle suppression coating on the cover to the hard drive. However, nickel has tripled in price between about 2001 and about 2006. Also, the requirement to electroplate the hard drive cover leads to more steps in assembly than coating and curing of a low surface energy coating onto the hard drive assemblies, the electroplating process entails use of potentially hazardous materials, and particles shed from such coated parts are very hard, i.e., nickel particles, that can readily cause significant damage to the media and read/write head(s).
E-coats or electophoretically-deposited coatings are also used as particle suppression coatings but it can be difficult to obtain uniform coatings (necessitating some post coating machining). In addition, outgassing related to uncured monomers or absorption of hydrocarbons into the coatings that later outgas into the drive is encountered.